Home Office Identity Minister Meg Hillier is now pitching ID cards as a weapon against social exclusion, and has mysteriously truffled-up nearly 6,000 extra ID card enthusiasts, meaning enrolments will hit 10,000 next week. Was it not just last week she said they'd only had 4,307 applications? Yes it was.
Furthermore, says …

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Eh?

So not having a passport leads to social exclusion does it? Well I don't have a passport and I don't think I've ever been excluded from anything for that reason. Clutching at straws on behalf of a drowning project?

I do have a passport

Bollards!

I don't have a passport. I didn't a few years ago either when I rented my first flat, set up four utility providers, got things delivered to the house, applied and got jobs, enrolled at colleges, set up a bank account..... etc etc.

I must be one of those "socially excluded" people who cannot take part in society due to having no ID that's acceptable.

Socially excluded people are I would think, more likely to be people who have been on long term benefits and have very poor credit. If you are in that situation, you will find banks unwilling to offer you a proper bank account and utility companies insisting on pre-payment metres. This leads to higher bills and can force many to use "dodgey" credit sources (dodgey dose not mean illegal either). Having a passport is not going to change a banks mind on whether to give you an account or not - it will just speed up the decision a little and save you the time of digging out that old birth certificate!

ID cards

"Or indeed, how they'll be able to get an ID card if they can't identify themselves."

Quite a serious comment, I presume you will need a signature from suitable worthy to confirm who you are but I have no lawyer, don't go to church, have never met my bank manager (branch several hundred miles away), only met my doctor once (only registered a few years ago never bothered before).

There is a box

And...

Baffled

I got my first passport when I was 30 and don't remember any social exclusion as a result - bought houses, rented flats, got drunk, visited nightclubs.

The passport has now expired and I'm still not excluded. It hasn't been renewed due to the current pricing structure - I would have to spend around £300 with the passport office if I wanted to holiday abroad with my family this summer!

Misleading headline

Madwoman speaks..........bollocks.

Ha-ha! another NuLab madwoman talking bollocks. After May she will no doubt still be talking bollocks the only difference is that no one will care. Not that many care now now of course, but thats another story...........

Listen with Hillier

... and the woolly-minded mammoth trumpeted louder and thrashed more wildly as the tar stuck to her fur. Slowly but inexorably the weight of rubbish dragged her down her down into the pit. Soon the bubbles stopped, and the tar closed over her without leaving a trace.

I am reliably informed...

re: "Shouldn't her comments go through a spin doctor or some PR guru?"

... that a Home Office offiicial now goes around afterwards clearing up, er... misunderstandings among the audience.

That some more credulous media than El Reg will print any old rubbish a minister happens to announce, as a product of ideologically convenient misunderstandings of her own or the IPS's own economy of expression, is no doubt unfortunate, and in no way a feature of the government's PR strategy.

lol

"she also claims that public support for ID cards has 'grown consistently over the last year, now close to 60 per cent, whilst opposition has declined'."

That statement actually has me grinning from ear to ear. This Meg Hitler bloke talks more shit than a turd salesman. He must have some kind of brain implant to help him come up with such random statistics.

I hope Mr Hitler has a Twitter feed, I could use some nonsensical gibberish in my crypto keys. C'est fantastique

I could use some nonsensical gibberish in my crypto keys.

"I could use some nonsensical gibberish in my crypto keys."

A use at last for all the 'noise' that comes out of politicians mouths - use it as actual random noise! If I ever want to brute force your crypto keys, I'll use the Government Press Release archive as the dictionary!

You only have to do it once!!

Being very sad, I actually looked at the article your report refers to.

Can anyone tell me what the last sentence of the following quote actually means?

"In some circumstances we want to know that people are who they say they are for the public good. This might be to meet security requirements, prove eligibility to work, or prevent crime. But it is equally, if not more important, to make it easy for individuals to verify their identity once, rather than time and time again.

"

I thought the whole point of this thing is that we are going to be continually asked to prove that we are who we say we are.

Re: Indeed...

Actually there's no great reason why HMRC should care particularly about who you really are. For most of the dosh it's just a matter of making sure the employers are doing approximately the right tax deductions and bunging it across. From that point of view, HMRC should care less if the NI number is attached to Mickey Mouse, a Shetland Pony, or whatever, so long as it's being appropriately taxed.

Passports for jobs

Actually, as an ex-dole monkey I had the opposite experience needing a passport. Every single "professional" job I applied for insisted I bring a passport to my interview or I would not be considered for employment. (An NI card wasn't good enough apparently, 'cos you can still be a furriner and have an NI number!)

Turning employers into boarder guards is *definitely* throwing up a barrier to the disadvantaged trying to apply for work..... Not that this justifies ID cards and the Nu-Stasi database obviously.

Re: Passports for jobs

It was always intended that this be the case. When Blunkett first proposed them, they were to be called Entitlement Cards, the notion being that you had to prove who you were and what your entitlements were in order to claim them. So making employers liable if they employ illegal immigrants and forcing banks to impose tougher ID checks (you know the way your bank keeps asking you to prove who you are, no matter how long you've banked with them? - government's fault) forces people to prove who they are more often. Thus creating a greater demand for ID cards.

No passport - No ID card...

mother in law doesn't go abroad but does occasionally need a form of ID at teh bank etc so applied for one. As her old passport expired about 8 years ago and she can't find it she isn't allowed to apply for a ID card yet.......

Scary...

So what we're saying is that Hackney has a large percentage of lobotomised voters....

Her pedigree is impeccable by Labour standards though...

Oxford educated in PPE -> Librarian -> Journalist -> councillor -> mayor -> all women shortlist (htf does that work with all the 'equality' legislation these communists have brought in?) -> MP -> junior government minister (just about as soon as she's in the door)....

@John Lettice

"The only thing that'll shift a Hackney Labour MP is the Hackney Labour Party. "

That was lazy of me. Checked Wikipedia just after posting.

Not necessarily. Remember the Speaker's constituency in Glasgow? c26000 Labour majority. IIRC it went to the SNP with around a 4000 majority. I think the safe seat MPs also had a disproportionate involvement in the expenses scandal. Ms Hillier seems to have avoided getting covered in too much of that.

I'd guessed her willingness for this project was her snowballs chance in hell of being re-elected, hence seeing weather she could push this thing through so far that it could not be canceled. Obviously she fully expects to stay in.

@ElFatbob

"Her pedigree is impeccable by Labour standards though...

Oxford educated in PPE -> Librarian -> Journalist -> councillor -> mayor -> all women shortlist (htf does that work with all the 'equality' legislation these communists have brought in?) -> MP -> junior government minister (just about as soon as she's in the door)...."

Actually it's impeccable by any government . I've lost count of the number of Oxbridge PPE's who end up somewhere in the reptile house.

The former heads of MI5 and 6 (including the one who went on to head the SOCA, the lead agency for IMP) have all done the course.

Like the US funded officer training college in Panama many of whose graduates have gone on to mount coups in their homeland this seems to attract students of a right thinking law and order point of view.